THE BROTHERS GRIMM / Terry Gilliam (2005)

July 8th, 2005 by Scott Marks

Heath Ledger & Matt Damon in Terry Gilliam’s THE BROTHERS GRIMM (2005)

The Brothers Grimm (2005)

Directed by: Terry Gilliam

Written by: Ehren Kruger

Cast: Matt Damon, Heath Ledger, Lena Headey, Peter Stomare, Monica Bellucci, Petr Ratimec, Jonathan Pryce, Barbora Lukesová, Anna Rust, Jeremy Robson, Radim Kalvoda, Martin Hofman, Martin Hofmann, Josef Pepa Nos, Harry Gilliam, Miroslav Táborský, Roger Ashton-Griffiths, Marika Sarah Procházková, Mackenzie Crook

Aspect Ratio: 1.85 : 1

Running Tme: 118 min.

Genres: Action, Adventure, Comedy, Fantasy, Horror, Thriller

Rating:

Don’t expect the obligatory studio-damning follow-up documentary. For a change, over the top (and frequently over budget) director Terry Gilliam received final cut.

His first completed film since 1998’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Gilliam reportedly tinkered for two years while Miramax repeatedly shuffled opening dates. In wide release at last, The Brothers Grimm is a visually dazzling Byzantine blockbuster of a thrill ride aimed at, joy of joys, adult minds.

Finally, a contemporary fantasy film that shuns the Hollywood notion that action and adventure must solely be geared for teenage boys. Given their similarities and dark underlying preoccupations, Walt Disney is likely to be applauding horizontally in his cryogenic chamber.

There are three types of people in this world: those who do not believe in magic beans, those who do, and the Studio Heads who capitalize on those who do. Not unlike their contemporary Hollywood counterparts, Nineteenth-Century hucksters Wilhelm (Matt Damon) and Jacob Grimm (Heath Ledger) track local villages selling counterfeit action tales (with great advance word of mouth) that climax in a bunch of slick special effects. They weave tales of non-existent monsters then offer to exterminate them for a hefty fee. Business is booming until the curse of a three-hundred-year-old queen (Monica Belucci) turns out to be the real deal.

Not since Warner Bros. animator Tex Avery’s screwball classic Little Red Walking Hood, in which Cinderella telephones Red from the Three Bears’ cottage to alert her of the Big Bad Wolf’s pending arrival, has a film had so much fun mixing and matching fairy tales. Cindy, Red, Snow White, Rapunzel, you name them and they’re in the pages of horror writer Ehren Kruger’s (Arlington Road, the Americanized The Ring and it’s sequel) gets-better-as-it-progresses screenplay.

Damon and Ledger, with an emphasis on the quirky latter, bring a suitable second-rate thirties comedy team sensibility to the caterwauling siblings. Shemp and Larry minus Moe, but it works. Gilliam regular Jonathan Pryce’s nefarious Delatombe deliciously delivers some of the film’s funniest line readings. Favoring spectacle, Gilliam wisely tunes down a romantic subplot involving adventuress Lena Headey.

It’s Cavaldi, Peter Stormare’s larger than life and stronger than dirt braggart that triumphs over all but the art direction. Even with spotty digital sound at the Fashion Valley preview screening, every syllable of Stormare’s craftily fractured French rang through. The only redeeming facet of the otherwise unclean Constantine, Stormare adds another miscreant to his long and impressive list of diverse, hopelessly repugnant supporting characters.

With the exception of a Pillsbury Mudboy, the computer generated effects remain firmly anchored in their fantasy universe. This is especially noteworthy when you consider the film cost a mere $75 million to complete, almost a third of the price tags attached to either Revenge of the Silt or Bore of the World. A master of scenic invention as a means of storytelling, Gilliam along with production designer Guy Dyas floods their Magic Forest with menacing surrealist details including muscular trees with relocating roots. Alternating scenes are designed in accordance to Gilliam’s customary flair for wild shifts in tone, light and color.

To hell with s*itberg and lucas. This summer’s intelligent adventure begins, continues and ends with Terry Gilliam’s best film since Brazil.